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The Lost One
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Category:
Historical Fiction
Publisher: Ithaca Publishing
ISBN-10: 1508760306
Type: Fiction
Pages: 358
Copyright: Feb 2, 2015
ISBN-13: 9781508760306
Price: $4.51 (eBook)
The Lost One is a romantic family saga of hidden treasure, family secrets and a lost heir. An international novel of one woman’s discovery of her exotic heritage.
Why is Purdie Davis, an unexceptional nurse from New Zealand, receiving unsolicited gifts? Not ordinary but unusual, valuable antiques that must have a story behind them. Purdie doesn’t know their source, and has no idea of their significance. Is she wrong to find this attention menacing?
A romantic saga spanning three generations, The Lost One begins as Kyril Komarov flees Moscow, escaping the Russian Revolution. Gradually Purdie learns about her family and of the treasure entrusted to their protection at the dawn of the twentieth century, a treasure that now could put Purdie’s own life in danger.
Balanced between the past and the present, with history, intrigue and fabulous Russian treasure, The Lost One unfolds one family's legacy.
Excerpt
PROLOGUE
Moscow, 1917.
It was the end of winter. Late season snowflakes blew into his eyes, and the dark came early. There was good reason for Kyril Komarov to keep his eyes on the pavement and watch his step.
The man was almost invisible in the shadow of the door frame. Kyril, striding home, his mind on his own matters, was abreast of him, unheeding.
“Merde!” Kyril exclaimed, as a hand reached out and grabbed his coat sleeve.
“Quiet,” urged the voice.
Kyril peered into the shadows to identify his accoster. It took him a few moments to place the man, recalling him as a minor government functionary who had once inspected the factory. Kyril sieved his memory for the name. “Sergei Petrovich,” he whispered. “What in the name of Christ are you doing? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Follow me,” returned the man, opening the door.
Once inside, Sergei released his arm. “Sorry, but I needed to stop you,” he apologised. “You know they’ve arrested them?”
Kyril stared at him. All Moscow knew the Tsar had abdicated that day and the Bolshevik Army had put his family into ‘protective custody’. He nodded. “So?”
“Word has it that you closed your factory in Petrograd Shausse today. Indeed, as we speak, your lovely wife, brother and son are all packing their bags to leave Moscow tomorrow. Many would say, given the current situation, that this is a wise move. I understand you have family in Great Britain?”
Kyril paled. It was true – one of the factory staff could have talked and mentioned the closure of the works, but no one was supposed to know the Komarovs were fleeing. He wondered who had opened their mouth, and to whom. Surely not his wife or his son.
It wouldn’t be his brother, either. Ilya might be young and enthusiastic, but he was the least likely person of them all to talk about secret things.
Sergei watched Kyril’s face and snorted at the expressions moving across it. “Don’t worry, my friend. You have nothing to fear from me, but my boss would like to meet you. If you would be so kind as to follow me now?”
Kyril weighed his options. In these troubled times it made sense not to cross the secret police. Who knew where alliances were being formed? He shrugged his shoulders and indicated assent, receiving a wry half-smile from his companion.
“Thank you, my dear friend,” Sergei murmured, before leading Kyril through a maze of narrow corridors and staircases.
They passed through a green baize door. Kyril hadn’t had time to take note of his surroundings but knew he must be in a government administrative building. Once through the door, the corridors broadened, and the next flight of stairs was palatial.
Sergei paused beside a door, knocked and entered, drawing Kyril in with him.
The man seated behind the desk was unknown to Kyril, though clearly, given his surroundings, someone of importance. He raised his eyes as they entered and searched Kyril’s face.
“General Mirov, may I present to you Kyril Gregorovitch Komarov.”
The general nodded and gestured to Sergei. “You may leave us alone.”
Sergei saluted and left.
Kyril may not have recognised the face, but he knew the name. Mirov, a highly decorated officer, was a war hero, praised in the press for his exploits at the front against the German aggressors.
Kyril studied the man in front of him. He was about the same age as himself but had a raw physicality and athleticism, which made him a commanding figure.
“Please sit.” The general waved Kyril to one of the chairs. “Thank you for coming so promptly,” he added.
Kyril blinked; surely he had been brought? Perhaps the general had the wrong man? He didn’t like to correct him, so he stayed silent.
“I hope Sergei was courteous in his invitation?” There was a ghost of a smile in his eyes as he asked the question. “Sometimes he is a little enthusiastic in carrying out his duties.”
Kyril nodded silently, wondering where this was going.
“I understand you and your family leave Moscow tomorrow and you intend to travel to Great Britain?”
Again Kyril nodded. How was it everyone seemed to know his business?
“I also understand you are a moderate, in your political views? I think your family business served the Tsar?”
Kyril drew a deep breath, wondering how best to answer. “We were appointed as official harness-makers to the Tsar, general.”
The general grunted, stood up and paced across the room. “Good. Then I have a commission for you.” He turned abruptly to face Kyril. “You must understand that in these complicated political times, while Mother Russia moves towards the future, much of the good from her past may be lost.” He read Kyril’s look of incomprehension. “I mean our cultural heritage,” he added.
Kyril nodded uncertainly.
“There has already been looting. Even those charged to look after such things are not immune to political propaganda. Some of our churches have been desecrated and other artworks destroyed.”
He came close to Kyril and leaned back against the desk, still facing him. “I am a historian, Mr Komarov, and a lover of Russia and of our heritage.” He sighed. “If you study history … Do you know your history, Mr Komarov?”
Kyril nodded. “A little, sir, although my skills are those of a businessman, not an academic.”
“Then you will know the course of events in all upheavals. So much was lost to France in their revolution. Most of their royal jewels were sold off as worthless at the time and ended up in the possession of the crown of England. Now France has no way of regaining her own heritage,” he said morosely. I don’t wish to see this happen to my country.” He paused. “So much will be lost, but there is a little I can do to help save some of it.”
Reaching forward he clasped Kyril by the shoulder. “You are a patriot, my friend. Your views are known to me. I also know you are an honest man, yet you’re in danger because you are tainted by your association with the Tsarist regime. So you must take your family and go. Who can blame you?” he added. “But there is one last service you can perform for your nation.”
He indicated a small crate on the floor against the wall. “I need you to take this with you in your personal luggage when you leave tomorrow.”
Kyril turned to look at the box, and both men studied it in silence for a few minutes.
At last Kyril asked, “What’s in it, sir?”
“I don’t think you need to know that.”
Kyril shook his head. “If you don’t tell me what is in it then, with respect, sir, I’m not taking it with me. It could be anything, and it could put me and my family in danger.”
“You may be safer, in fact, in ignorance,” demurred the general.
Kyril Komarov had not been a trader for nothing. “General, either I know what’s in that case, or it doesn’t come with me. If it’s valuable government property, I need to know about it.”
The general shook his head and sighed. “It’s not government property, Mr Komarov. It is private property, and I’ve been authorised by the owners to save and conceal it in the way that seems best to me in the circumstances.” He looked at Kyril again. “Are you certain you need to know?”
Kyril nodded.
In silence the general reached down, lifting the crate onto the desk. Raising the lid disclosed a metal box, the type soldiers in the field have for their possessions. The general lifted it out and unlocked the top. Kyril looked inside.
Mirov moved the packing aside to reveal several wrapped parcels. Very carefully, almost reverentially, he unfolded the covering.
Kyril gasped at the opulent item that appeared. “What is it?” he whispered.
“One of the imperial family’s Fabergé Easter eggs. The jeweller made one each year, commissioned by the Tsar. There is no safe place in Russia for them. Do you understand now, Mr Komarov?”
Kyril nodded.
“One day, if God wills, it will be safe for them to return to Russia. In the interim, harness-maker by imperial decree, I am appointing you their steward. My own position is under threat from various parties, and I cannot even guarantee my own survival over the next few weeks. I can’t keep them with me. They must be saved for the future of Russia.”
He paused for a moment before asking quietly, “Do you accept the charge?”
Kyril ran his hand through his thinning hair, a gesture he often favoured, so his wife told him, when his mind was troubled. He didn’t want the responsibility, but he believed in what the general had said. He nodded reluctantly. “I accept.”
Mirov looked at him soberly. “I know you don’t want this charge, my friend. But if you can save these for Russia’s future, you do us all a great service.” He let out a sigh of relief. “Such service will not go unrewarded, or unsupported,” he said.
He opened the drawer of his desk and pulled out a few small bags. “Take these as payment for services rendered, for help in the times you have ahead of you, and as my personal thanks.”
He smiled at Kyril’s questioning look. “There are diamonds, some other stones. Good quality. There is also gold and other coin, a couple of ornate eggs of no particular historical merit, but of some value. You will need to source a purchaser when you trade the stones or eggs, but for a man of your experience in business, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Choose wisely, though. These are stones of the finest water.”
He pushed the bag across to Kyril, who hesitated. “Take them, Mr Komarov,” he said softly. “I know what you and your family have already lost.” He smiled wryly. “These will provide a more than adequate recompense, I believe. Use them well.”
Kyril looked at him squarely. “Thank you,” he said at last. “I will care for this treasure, as you ask. I will always be a true patriot to my country.” He picked up the bag and weighed it. “Thank you for your payment. It won’t recompense us for what we have lost,” he said, putting it into the inner pocket of his coat, “but I thank you.”
“Go with God, Mr Komarov,” said the general waving him away.
Later that night Kyril and Ilya sat in front of the dying fire. They had shared many evenings in this room. These last minutes in the family home were moments to cherish.
The brothers shared a fine-boned physique which, in Kyril, manifested itself as a sophisticated, trim figure, and in Ilya as a slightness that made him look younger than his twenty-eight years. Beyond that, the physical resemblance between the two was slight.
Kyril was dark. Immaculate grooming kept his trim moustache smart and his hair well cut, disguising the fact that his broad forehead owed more to a receding hairline than to the ‘intellectual brow’ he himself claimed.
Ilya’s hair was longer and fair. His eyes sparkled with life and enthusiasm, and he moved with a dancer’s slim-hipped grace. He had been a willing participant in the family business, but Kyril had sometimes wondered whether this was the result of Ilya’s happy personality rather than a career choice made voluntarily.
The brothers complemented each other and had an easy rapport. Kyril was serious; Ilya the family clown and charmer. Kyril could be intimidating, and it was often Ilya’s charm and easy manner that smoothed relations between employed and employer at the factory.
Twenty years separated the two brothers, the result of intervening miscarriages on their late mother’s part. When their father died, Kyril had taken on the role of mentor and guardian to his younger brother, a role he believed he still occupied.
Kyril’s wife Anna, dry-eyed and determined, had left them together an hour earlier. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ilya,” she said heading up to bed. From time to time the brothers could hear the sound of her dry cough.
Both men were looking at the tin box.
Ilya had declined to view the Fabergé eggs. “The fewer people who see them, the better,” he commented. “I don’t need to see them. They were given to you and are your responsibility.” He hesitated, squaring his shoulders. “Kyril, I was going to say this anyway, before you were handed this task, so don’t think the two are related,” he said, “but I’m not coming with you tomorrow, not to the West anyway.”
Kyril stared at him, flabbergasted. “Of course you’re coming. We can’t leave you here. It’s even more dangerous for us now, thanks to this box. Someone may connect us with this treasure. Sergei, for one, knows where I was tonight. Who knows who else does.”
“I’m not staying in Moscow,” Ilya said. “I want to go east.”
Kyril snorted. “East is Siberia! That’s nonsense. There’s nothing there.”
Ilya smiled. “Well, actually, there’s a young student friend of mine from Yekaterinburg who waits for me. If that doesn’t work out, I prefer the thought of being a trader in the East. I’ve read about Manchuria, Shanghai and other exotic places. I want to travel, just not in the direction that you, Anna and Charles are going.”
Kyril frowned at him in dismay. “We’d never see you again! How could we travel between Europe and China? We would lose you, Ilya.”
“I am sure that one day we’d travel and meet up – me with my central Russian bride, you with your English-speaking son. The world isn’t so big nowadays, Kyril. Mail gets to every part of the globe. Ships and travellers can go anywhere.” Ilya smiled. “This is a time of adventure for us, Kyril. Please don’t make the parting hard.” He held Kyril’s hand. “Our world here has gone, big brother. We have to build a new one for ourselves. I fancy the East with all its exotic goods, spices, teas. I can be like Marco Polo!”
Kyril knew Ilya well enough to know once his mind was made up he wouldn’t change it. Ilya might look slight and boyish, but he was tempered steel inside. Nor could Kyril really argue with him. He wondered fleetingly, if he didn’t have a wife and child, would he too have taken the eastern road. “At least take some of this.” He gestured to the pile of stones. “Maybe they’ll give you start-up capital and help you on your way. That is, if you don’t get murdered for them,” he added.
Ilya grinned. “Trust me, big brother. I can look after myself.”
Next morning the family assembled in the hall. They knelt in front of the family icon, and Kyril led prayers for the safety of them all.
“We will meet in Heaven, if not again on earth,” prayed Anna, hugging her brother-in-law. She had tried tears and entreaties to change his mind but had failed. In the end, Anna sadly accepted the situation. She took a locket from around her neck. “Please, Ilya, take this. It has photos inside of Kyril and me, and a lock of Charles’s hair. At least have some things from your family with you,” she said as she put it on him, tucking the ornament down inside his shirt. “There,” she said. “No one can see it, but it means your family will be close to your heart.”
Ilya grinned, hugged Charles and embraced his brother one last time.
“Go with God,” said Kyril.
“May God be with you too,” echoed Ilya.
Both knew in reality they would never meet again. The pain was so great; there was no point mentioning it. Neither brother knew what the future would bring.
Anna had decided that Ilya should take the icon with him as well. “You must have some family heritage with you,” she declared. “You must remember your family, and your God.”
Kyril and Ilya exchanged wry glances, and Kyril shrugged. “We’ll both remember,” he said obliquely to Ilya.
Ilya nodded, shoved his cap, which had shifted in their last embrace, back onto his head, and grinned.
The last possessions stowed, the family said goodbye to their servants and took the cab to the station, and the brothers parted to fulfil their separate destinies.
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